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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492397">Midnight Hour</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/winteratdusk/pseuds/winteratdusk'>winteratdusk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergent, Confusion, Drug Withdrawal, Fever, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Nausea, Past non-consensual drug use, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve Rogers, Sick Bucky Barnes, Sickfic, Vomiting, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:08:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492397</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/winteratdusk/pseuds/winteratdusk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fight on the helicarriers, the Soldier means to disappear, but without HYDRA's "maintenance" he isn't able to get far. Steve finds him sick, confused, and in desperate need of help. Over the course of a night, Steve and Bucky both grapple with the damage HYDRA's done, doing their best to weather the storm and make it through to morning.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>234</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Nightfall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warnings should be spelled out in the tags - be sure to check those! If you're squeamish about depictions of illness I'd probably sit this one out :P</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Soldier had been forced to risk his life countless times over the past century. Just an occupational hazard, came with the territory. </p><p>Still, for all that he’d been through, the Soldier hadn’t spent much time thinking about <em> how </em> he might die. Usually, he just hadn’t had the presence of mind to think about such things; his handlers kept his thoughts well-suppressed, smothered by whatever mixture of substances they’d concocted that day to keep someone even as enhanced as he was empty-headed and obedient. On the rare occasions when the drugs wore off, in the flashes of clarity he got before the shaking and the sweating started up and he knew he’d need to drag himself back to base for maintenance, he sometimes wondered what it might be like to die - or at least to up and <em> leave </em> , to never have to endure the beatings or the freezing or the awful <em> wipes </em> ever again. But he knew, as surely as he was able to know anything, that leaving, through death or otherwise, wasn't allowed. And when he did things that weren’t allowed they made him <em> hurt </em>. Even thinking about disobedience sent ghosts of electricity burning into his brain, reminding him of what would happen if he failed, if he went against his orders. He returned to base every time. </p><p>Now, though, he’d done both - he’d failed and he’d disobeyed - and in that brief and blissful moment of post-mission clarity, he’d thought he might actually get away with it. He didn’t spare much thought for dying in those moments - he’d been focused on gathering supplies, on getting out of town before anyone knew he was gone, on the face of the man who’d called him <em> Bucky </em>and looked at him like he was a person and hadn’t raised his fists to fight back even as the Soldier beat him to a pulp. The Soldier was good at disappearing, and that was exactly what he planned to do as he reveled in his newfound clarity and started to piece together the fragmented memories that had floated to the surface of his mind as soon as he’d heard the voice of that man on the bridge. </p><p>But then the shaking started, and it didn’t stop, and the Soldier no longer needed to wonder how he was going to die. He already knew. It was happening right now, in real time, and the last clear thought he was able to formulate before it really got going was that he was so goddamn sorry he’d ever even thought of leaving. He needed HYDRA’s maintenance more than he’d ever needed anything.</p><p>It was night, dark and only a little chilly, but the Soldier was sure he had to be freezing to death. There could be no other explanation for the way his skin was crawling, burning like it did when he stepped into a heated safe house after a long mission out in the Russian winter. He’d meant to get out of DC, but the sickness had come on so fast that he hadn’t managed it. Instead he found himself at the outskirts of the city, lost and without shelter, his legs shaking hard as he tried to stumble his way… somewhere, he thought vaguely, stopping to brace himself against the wall of a crumbling brick building and breathe through the tremors wracking his body. He’d had a destination. If he could just <em> think </em>… but there was something fogging up his head, making his mind work at half-speed, sort of like it did back at base when techs started sticking needles in him, only worse, because this cloudy feeling didn’t come with relief. It just sent something throbbing between his eyes, letting him form only the beginnings of half-coherent ideas before the pain slammed into him and derailed his train of thought, leaving him blind and breathless and unable to do anything but ride it out. </p><p>He needed maintenance, that was all. The techs could end this. He knew he’d disobeyed, but maybe if he really begged, they wouldn’t hurt him too badly, just enough to make sure he’d learned his lesson. Then maybe they’d fix him…   </p><p>Something vile churned in the Soldier’s stomach, scattering his thoughts as all his attention went to the rotten feeling in his middle. He wrapped his flesh arm, still aching at the shoulder, around his abdomen, leaving his metal hand braced against the brick wall he was leaning on. The wall looked like it belonged to a residential building, and some deeply buried insight from the Soldier’s training told him he should keep quiet, make sure the windows of the building stayed dark and he remained undetected. But as something wet started pooling in his mouth, accompanied by another throb of his aching head, all considerations of his training went out the window. The awful sick feeling in his gut was ramping up and he just wanted it to <em> stop </em>.</p><p>The Soldier let out a shaky breath and leaned forward to open his mouth, thinking that if he could just drain away the bitter taste his stomach would calm down. But no such luck - as soon as his mouth was open, he couldn’t hold the nausea back anymore. He lurched forward as his stomach clenched, cringing as a wave of vomit spilled out onto the wall in front of him.</p><p>When the cramping in his stomach finally alleviated enough for him to breathe again, his head was pounding even more insistently than it had been before. He unwrapped his trembling hand from around his stomach, using it to lift the collar of his shirt, an old gray hoodie he’d pilfered from a HYDRA safehouse after the fight, and wipe the dregs of sick from around his mouth. The fabric was soft, but it burned against his face. He felt a few involuntary tears jump into his eyes, and he did his best to wipe them away more gently.</p><p>He needed to do something, he thought, head spinning as he stared at the foul puddle at his feet. He was sick and hurting, could feel it getting worse, and dammit, maybe he deserved it, but he didn’t want to feel like this. It was a godawful way to die. He cast around in his mind for options, searching through the fog that had settled there, but names of handlers and directions to specific HYDRA bases eluded him. He could only picture one thing clearly - the man from the bridge with that soft look in his eyes, a look so much at odds with anything else the Soldier could ever remember seeing. He was… a handler? No, that wasn’t quite right, but as sickness started coiling in his gut again, the Soldier decided it hardly mattered. That man, whatever he was, was the Soldier’s only chance at salvation. He had to find him.</p><p>Taking a deep breath and doing his best to clear his mind, the Soldier let go of the wall and pushed on, a new mission in mind.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>After the Potomac, Steve could hardly sleep. In the four nights since the fight on the helicarriers, he’d had as many nightmares, all of them the same - fire and smoke, the sick feeling of freefall as his body plunged to the river below, time pulling thin and stretching as though just to prolong the terror of the fall. He always woke up just before he hit the water. His first thought upon waking was always that he wished Bucky might have had the same luck when he’d been the one falling, almost a lifetime ago.</p><p>When he couldn’t get back to sleep after a nightmare, Steve would inevitably reach for the file sitting on his bedside table, the one he hadn’t been without since Natasha surreptitiously pressed it into his hands just a couple of days prior. He told himself he needed to read it for the intel, for the leads it might generate, for the window it provided into the minds of the enemy. And he did read it, did look for all those things. But more often than not he would pull out the file only to find himself distracted, staring at the picture of Bucky tucked into the front cover, bright-eyed and smiling under the cap of his dress uniform. The rest of the file with its no-holds-barred descriptions of experiments and violence and torture beyond what Steve could imagine never got easier to read, but it was hard to tire of looking at Bucky’s face, young and untouched by everything that was to come.</p><p>Still, Steve could only handle so many sleepless nights spent reading about the person he loved most being beaten and drugged, electrocuted and forced to kill. At some point even Steve, stubborn to a fault, needed a break.When he woke up on the fourth night after the fight, the third of those nights that he’d spent out of the hospital and back in his bullet-riddled apartment in DC, his eyes went to the file out of habit, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to open it. Just the sight of the closed folder was enough to send him imagining the worst, picturing Bucky’s dead eyes staring blankly over the edge of that horrible mask. Never mind that it was practically midnight - Steve needed a walk to clear his head.</p><p>Steve’s neighborhood, far from the bustling city center, was quiet in the middle of the night, offering him a peaceful enough place to get his thoughts in order. He slipped out of his apartment and started wandering, not really caring where he might end up. He had more important things on his mind. In the morning he’d call Sam, see if he’d caught onto any new leads on Bucky’s whereabouts. He’d comb through the file again to see if he’d somehow missed any information. He’d… </p><p>Steve was startled away from his internal monologue by the sound of another voice. With HYDRA still at the forefront of his mind, he was instantly wary - but the voice didn’t sound calculating or even coherent, as Steve might have expected from a hostile or a spy. It sounded more like it might belong to a homeless guy, tucked away in the alley between a pair of nearby apartment buildings and muttering to himself. It was a chilly night, and Steve couldn’t help but feel bad for anyone spending it outside. Steeling himself for a fight just in case, he cautiously moved to the edge of the sidewalk to peer into the opening of the alley.</p><p>He felt his tight posture loosen as he glanced in and saw that the guy talking hardly looked like a threat. He was on the ground, slumped against the wall with his knees tucked to his chest and his arms wrapped around his stomach, a hooded sweatshirt obscuring his hair and downturned face. He didn’t seem to notice Steve standing at the mouth of the alley, just kept talking quietly to himself, shaking minutely from what Steve assumed was the cool temperature. </p><p>“Hey, pal. You okay?” </p><p>The guy didn’t answer Steve, but his incomprehensible muttering cut off abruptly, leaving him curled up and rigidly still aside from the steady tremor Steve could see running through him. Taking pity on him, Steve moved towards the guy, digging in the pocket of his pants to find his wallet. As soon as he stepped into the alley Steve was affronted by the man’s smell, something like old sweat and what Steve could have sworn was bile. Steve wrinkled his nose but pushed on, digging a couple bills out of his wallet.</p><p>“Don’t have much on me, but this should be enough for you to get someplace warm for -” </p><p>As Steve moved close enough for his shadow to fall over the man hunched on the ground, the guy jumped, clearly startled, and laboriously moved to raise his head. The hood of his dingy gray sweatshirt fell away as he moved, revealing lank dark hair, glassy blue eyes, and fever-pink cheeks. He looked like hell, but Steve would know that face anywhere.</p><p>“<em> Bucky? </em>”</p><p>Steve was on his knees in an instant, absently shoving the bills from his wallet back into his pocket. It was clear that Bucky needed help beyond what a few bucks and a night off the streets could provide. He was sick, Steve could tell, the smell of vomit seeming even stronger now that he was crouched closer to Bucky’s trembling body. Beyond that, Bucky looked completely disoriented - he blinked at Steve confusedly now that they were at eye level, not even a hint of recognition alighting in his glazed eyes. The awful blankness in his expression reminded Steve uncomfortably of fighting the Winter Soldier, but he did his best to do away with the association. Bucky may not have been coherent enough to recognize Steve, but something in his eyes was still alive and all but pleading for help. Steve was going to do whatever he could to accommodate.</p><p>“Buck, what happened? Are you okay? God. Can I… what can I do that’ll help you?”</p><p>Bucky hardly seemed to register what Steve was saying. He looked at Steve for a long moment, expression empty aside from a slight twitch in the muscles of his face, his head jerking to the side in a quick, involuntary-seeming motion. Steve could practically sense Bucky trying to calibrate through seventy years of brainwashing and the obvious fever to boot.</p><p>“I-I need…” Bucky eventually stammered, words tumbling together and sounding like the soft litany he’d been speaking to himself before Steve approached him. “Please. Maintenance.”</p><p>Steve let out a long breath, trying not to let his rage at HYDRA and everything they’d done boil to the surface. He’d read the Winter Soldier file more times than he'd ever wanted to. He knew very well what “maintenance” meant, knew about all the experimental drugs they’d funneled into Bucky to keep him pliant while they strapped him into the machine that burned memories out of his brain, then the ones they gave him after to make him sharp and laser-focused through missions despite the brain damage. They had the audacity to call it “maintenance,” like Bucky was just a machine that needed oiling. And now here Bucky was, sick and begging for the brutal, dehumanizing procedure. It was enough to practically make Steve sick as well.</p><p>“Sorry, pal,” Steve managed once he finally trusted his voice again. “I know you need… help. But this isn’t HYDRA, Buck. It’s me. It’s Steve.”</p><p>Bucky’s face twitched again, a tic that seemed to surface whenever his eyes managed to actually focus on Steve’s face. This time the motion pulsed through the rest of his body too, bringing up a wet-sounding hiccup that left Bucky wincing and raising a trembling hand to clamp down over his mouth.</p><p>“Okay,” Steve said, hearing fear bleed into his voice as he watched Bucky going pale under the feverish red of his cheeks. “I know you must be feeling pretty rough. I can try - I can help. If you’ll let me, I can -”</p><p>Steve trailed off when Bucky moved, slowly loosening his hand from his mouth and sighing, the long breath morphing into a groan halfway through. Bucky swallowed hard once before looking to Steve, managing to actually keep unimpeded focus for a few seconds.</p><p>“I - please,” Bucky croaked. “Anything.”</p><p>Steve nodded, torn between heartbreak and pure, abject relief. He quickly rose to his feet, offering an arm down to help Bucky up.</p><p>“Can you - can you walk, do you think?”</p><p>Bucky gritted his teeth, looking at Steve’s outstretched hand but otherwise remaining still and silent.</p><p>“It’s okay if you can’t. It doesn’t matter. I’ll carry you all the way home if that’s what I gotta do, Buck. Just tell me what you need.”</p><p>Bucky finally reached out a trembling hand and latched onto Steve’s, his normally cool fingers feeling clammy and hot to the touch. Steve realized with a pang that, for the first time in almost seventy years, he was actually holding Bucky Barnes’s hand. (And that if he’d just been a little quicker to grab hold of Bucky’s hand seventy years ago, none of this would be happening in the first place.) He forced himself not to linger on the thought, instead putting all his energy into hauling Bucky’s limp, shaking body off the dirty ground. </p><p>Bucky let out a strangled noise of pain as Steve tugged at his arm and moved to swing it around his own shoulders. The sound sent Steve spiralling back to the helicarriers, to the much-louder version of that same noise that Bucky had made when Steve had been forced to wrench his shoulder out of its socket. He quickly dropped Bucky’s arm.</p><p>“Sorry,” he said frantically. “I’m so sorry, I forgot -”</p><p>But Bucky wasn’t listening. Without Steve’s support, he stumbled, clearly unable to keep standing under his own power. He lurched forward and caught himself on the opposite wall, legs wobbling as he struggled to stay upright. Before Steve could reach out to steady him again, Bucky’s head ducked beneath his shoulders. He let out another sick hiccup before giving in to the obvious urge to throw up, heaving hard as bile splattered into a puddle at his feet.</p><p>“Oh god. Alright.” Steve moved to wrap an arm around Bucky’s waist, concerned that he might collapse again without the added support. “You’re okay, Bucky. Let’s just get you home, yeah?”</p><p>“Mhm,” Bucky breathed shallowly. He was stiff and uncomfortable under Steve’s hands, but he willingly moved when Steve gently tugged him out of the alley and back to the sidewalk for the four-block walk back to Steve’s apartment.</p><p>“I’ve got you now,” Steve whispered as Bucky faltered, sagging into Steve’s chest as he fought to keep his footing. “You’re gonna be okay.”</p><p>
  <br/>
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</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Through the Dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In which Bucky has a bad time.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Updated tags for this chapter to include a depiction of injury!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Soldier knew he’d earned his punishment. That didn’t make the pain of it any easier to weather.</p><p>He’d done his best to seek out the man from the bridge, working off of whatever scraps of intel he could come up with after god knew how many wipes and the pounding headache that made thoughts damn near impossible to string together. He’d lost track of the mission halfway through and ended up on his ass in an alleyway somewhere vaguely near his former target’s residence, spilling his guts on the dirty ground and half-wishing that HYDRA would just come and pick him up and end this. He’d take the chair if it meant getting rid of the horrible all-consuming nausea, the ache that felt like it was seeping in through his skin all the way down to his bones.</p><p>Those wishes hadn’t mattered. The man from the bridge had found him anyway, picked him up and claimed to be leading him “home.” The Soldier tried to be grateful.</p><p>He stopped to throw up twice more on the walk. The man from the bridge, the man who called himself Steve, was with him the whole way, lingering one of his big hands on the Soldier’s back as he leaned over to puke into an unlucky flowerbed, a bare stretch of concrete. At one point Steve had even gathered the Soldier into his arms and tried to carry him, but he’d quickly aborted that effort. The uneven bobbing motion of Steve’s steps combined with his too-close proximity and the bizarrely familiar smell of his skin redoubled the Soldier’s nausea, sending up another wave of sick onto the Soldier’s already filthy jeans as well as Steve’s pristine shirt.</p><p>“Sorry,” the Soldier mumbled once Steve let him down. His head was foggy, making it difficult to remember whether this Steve was a handler or an enemy or maybe something else, but in any case, he knew better than to antagonize his company. The mess was probably worth some extra punishment, and the Soldier wanted to mitigate that as best he could. He was in enough pain already.</p><p>Steve just shook his head, apparently unconcerned. “You couldn’t help it,” he said, pausing in front of a tall brick building to fumble in his pocket for a key. “Don’t worry about it, Buck.”</p><p><em> Buck. </em> Steve had called him that before, he thought. He searched his addled brain, pulled for the memory, but it wouldn’t quite materialize. The word - the name? - hurt to hear, bringing with it memories of the chair, of electricity burning through him and sealing off the areas of his mind that HYDRA didn’t want him to access. The name “Bucky” belonged in one of those forbidden corners. That at least answered the lingering question of the identity of the man he was with - he had to be a handler, one who knew the word wasn’t allowed and was dusting it off just to punish him with it. The Soldier cringed as the pain borne of repressed memories trying to break free drove his headache up another notch. </p><p>Steve - no, the handler, the one who knew how to make him hurt - was leading him up a flight of stairs, keeping an arm around his waist to catch him as he stumbled and white-knuckled the railing for support. The Soldier’s injured arm screamed at him when he moved it, and it throbbed so bad when he put weight on it that for a moment he was sure he was about to black out, but he needed the railing. His legs felt weak and exhausted, the way they got when his handlers punished him by making him train until his body physically gave out on him. It seemed an odd choice to combine that sort of punishment with the sick agony of withheld maintenance, but the Soldier figured that his grave mistakes must have warranted especially grave consequences. </p><p>Still, he’d had worse, he reminded himself. He could get through this. </p><p>The handler pushed open the door to his quarters, ushering the Soldier inside, into the living room that the soldier vaguely remembered casing for one of his previous assignments. As soon as they were through the door the Soldier stumbled forward, blackness fuzzing at the edges of his vision, and gripped the back of the handler’s couch to keep himself from crumpling to the floor. The motion put so much pressure on his shoulder that he couldn’t help crying out.</p><p>As soon as the sound left his mouth, he froze, breath coming shallow and scared. He shouldn’t make noise, shouldn’t cry out, it wasn’t allowed -</p><p>“Hey.” The handler’s voice, a hand on his aching shoulder. The Soldier put every last bit of his energy into trying not to flinch, instead forcing himself to meet the handler’s eyes.</p><p>“This really hurting you?” the handler asked. The Soldier blinked, confused. He couldn’t remember ever being spoken to so gently. Slowly, he forced his aching head into a nod.</p><p>“I’m so sorry I had to do that to you. I never wanted to hurt you, Buck, I just - I had to.”</p><p>As he spoke, the handler was tracing the joint of the Soldier’s shoulder with his fingers, feeling out the swollen lump signifying something shifted out of place underneath the skin. The Soldier gritted his teeth so hard he half-expected them to start grinding into dust.</p><p>“I’m gonna fix it, okay? And it - it’s gonna hurt, but then I promise, never again.” The handler positioned his strong hands on either side of the Soldier’s shoulder. If he didn’t know better, the Soldier might have thought the handler was scared. “On three, alright? One, two -”</p><p>He didn’t finish the count. He’d scarcely reached two before his hands clamped down on the shoulder, the joint letting out a sharp pop as it slid back into place. The Soldier yelled in momentary agony but cut himself off abruptly when the pain that had been lingering in his misaligned arm for <em> days </em> started to melt away. He sagged against the couch in relief.</p><p>“Never again, you hear me?” the handler - no, <em> Steve, </em>the one who was showing him mercy - said earnestly. The Soldier pulled his pounding head into another laborious nod. He did hear, he just didn’t understand.</p><p>In the absence of the acute throbbing agony of his shoulder, the Soldier was starting to register other, lesser discomforts. He’d been shivering hard while on the streets, chilled and half-convinced he was on his way to freeing to death, but somewhere along the line he’d gone from frozen to boiling in his skin. He reached his metal hand up to tug uncomfortably at the sweat-soaked collar of his hoodie.</p><p>“Let’s get you a change of clothes, alright?” Steve asked, his eyes soft as he watched the Soldier sway dizzily through a wave of vertigo and tighten his grip on the back of the couch for support. “Might help you feel better.”</p><p>The Soldier frowned. “But I need…” </p><p>He regretted speaking as soon as the words left his mouth. He wasn’t allowed to tell his handlers what he needed; they knew better than he did. They were withholding maintenance for a reason - and, in all likelihood, that reason was to make him hurt, make him regret pulling his punches and defecting. He deserved this. He clamped his mouth shut and tightened his grip on the back of the couch, steeling himself for the beating that always came when he spoke out of turn. </p><p>But no, he was with <em> Steve, </em>who didn’t move to strike him. Steve had turned away from the Soldier and was heading towards a doorway on the other side of the living room, but when the Soldier spoke he turned back around slowly, looking almost sad.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Buck. I’m gonna do what I can to help you, but I don’t have… I don’t have that.” </p><p>The Soldier searched Steve’s face, really looked at it. The image before him flickered, superimposing itself over layers of other pictures, half-memories - a small boy with a crooked nose and Steve’s same blue eyes, a soldier wearing red, white, and blue clinging to the outside of a train and extending his hand to a man dangling below him, a blond man in a suit who’d backhanded the Soldier and smiled as he was hauled to the chair... the Soldier felt his face twitch, head jerking to the side as his brain stuttered and short-circuited at the contradictory input.</p><p>Finding it too hard to keep looking at the man who claimed to be Steve, the Soldier ducked his head, trying to breathe through another assault of cramping in his gut. He could still practically feel Steve’s eyes boring into his skin, so soft they hurt to look at. The Soldier knew that nothing in life was that soft, not really. There were always sharp edges, always consequences. He didn’t think he could bring himself to raise his head just to see that softness bleed away into inevitable pain.</p><p>“Okay,” Steve said, his voice dripping with that same softness that had been pooling in his eyes. The Soldier clenched his jaw. “Hang in there, Bucky. I’ll be right back.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>After rifling through his drawers to find clean clothes for both himself and Bucky, Steve lingered in his bedroom, taking a moment alone to breathe. </p><p>He was out of his depth and he knew it. HYDRA’s experiments, ther “maintenance” processes, were serious business - he knew as much from all the sleepless nights he’d spent reading over that damned Winter Soldier file. Bucky almost certainly needed more help than Steve was qualified to give, but with both SHIELD and HYDRA in ruins he could hardly call on the breadth of resources he’d once had access to. Hell, with all the recent news coverage about Captain America and a man with a metal arm terrorizing DC, he could hardly bring Bucky to a <em> hospital </em>. He just had to hope that Bucky’s enhanced system would keep him going until Steve was able to find a better solution.</p><p>Out in the living room, Steve heard a muffled thump, almost certainly the sound of a body hitting the ground. Berating himself for taking so long, Steve clutched the clean clothes in his arms and rushed to be by Bucky’s side.</p><p>He burst into the living room to find Bucky in a heap on the floor, hardly having moved from the spot where he’d stood at the back of the couch clinging on for dear life. He was curled around himself with his fists gripping handfuls of the front of his dirty sweatshirt, clawing at it like wrestling with the fabric might help quell the ache Steve was sure was blooming in his stomach. Bucky turned his head minutely to look up as Steve approached him with the pile of folded clothes, his glassy eyes wide and imploring and completely devoid of recognition. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispered as Steve dropped to his knees beside him, close enough to feel the heat of a fever radiating from his skin.</p><p>That wasn’t what Steve had expected to hear. His brow furrowed in confusion. “What for?”</p><p>Bucky’s face twitched again, eyes going blank and then refocusing. Steve could have sworn there was a moment of coherency there, but it quickly gave way to that same hazy blankness.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Bucky muttered. “But - please. I’ll be good. Please.” </p><p>That settled it for Steve. HYDRA wasn’t going to have a man left standing once he was through with them.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Bucky repeated desperately, his eyes now squeezed shut. “Please. W-whatever it was, I - I didn’t mean to.”</p><p>“Bucky.” Steve forced himself to speak with authority even as his voice shook like he was about to cry. Bucky’s eyes snapped open. </p><p>“Don’t apologize,” Steve insisted after a deep breath. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. And I’m not gonna hurt you, pal. I told you, not ever again. I’m just trying to get you feeling better.”</p><p>Bucky blinked blearily at him, distrust evident even in his cloudy expression. He wrestled with his sweatshirt again, winding his shaking fists more deeply into the fabric and pressing them tightly against his stomach. Steve’s own stomach was starting to twist just from seeing Bucky in such obvious agony.</p><p>“I’ve got clothes,” Steve said, feeling more inept by the minute. “If you want them, I can - I can help you change. Know it’s not much, but you might feel more comfortable if you’re clean.”  </p><p>Bucky was still looking at Steve like he thought he might be some sort of mirage, but he allowed Steve to take him by the shoulders and prop him up against the back of the couch to get changed. Steve tried to be gentle as he manhandled Bucky’s arms into the sleeves of a clean shirt, mindful of the pain he was sure was lingering in his formerly dislocated shoulder. Bucky had to stand when it came time to switch out his filthy jeans for a pair of sweatpants, and he latched onto Steve’s shoulders for support as he did it, leaning heavily against him to keep his balance. Steve could feel the tremors in Bucky’s hands jumping through his own body where they made contact. </p><p>“Okay,” Steve whispered once Bucky was finally dressed, dirty clothes gathered into a pile on the floor. He got cautiously from his knees to his feet, making sure Bucky kept holding onto his shoulders for balance even as Steve straightened up and their height difference reversed. “I know you’re feeling really bad. Can you - can you talk to me, tell me what you need?”</p><p>Bucky’s head was downturned, hanging towards his chest, but his grip on Steve’s shoulders tightened as Steve spoke. Steve could hear him swallowing hard, then -</p><p>“...Stevie?”</p><p>The whisper was so quiet that Steve almost missed it. When he finally picked the word out from between Bucky’s labored breaths, it was like all the oxygen in the room dissipated, leaving Steve lightheaded and fighting for air. He felt nearly as weak in the knees as Bucky was, trembling against him.</p><p>“Yeah,” Steve whispered. He reached up to gently cup Bucky’s chin, lifting his head so that their eyes met. “Yeah, it’s me, Buck. Do you… remember me?”</p><p>He stared hopefully into Bucky’s face, praying that the spell would stay unbroken, but Bucky’s eyes were quickly clouding again. His mouth flattened into a line as his throat worked, swallowing against something convulsively. </p><p>“I don’t - I can’t -” Bucky sputtered before his shoulders hunched forward in a gag he couldn’t control, dry heaving hard over Steve’s chest. </p><p>“Okay. That’s alright,” Steve sighed, trying not to let his disappointment show. “Let’s just go in here, okay?” He took Bucky by the shoulders, steering him in the direction of the bathroom just in case he had anything left in his stomach to lose. </p><p>“No - I <em> need </em> -” Bucky protested, digging his heels in. His shoulders kept buckling forward in tiny, convulsive retches he didn’t seem able to fight down, making his words sound garbled and incoherent.</p><p>“I know,” Steve insisted past a lump in his throat. “And I’m doing what I can here. You just gotta work with me, Bucky.”</p><p>Bucky groaned in distress but relented, allowing Steve to lead him through the apartment and into the tiny bathroom on the other side. As soon as they’d entered and Steve had flicked on the light, Bucky was on his knees in front of the toilet, leaning over the bowl and loosing what sounded like another incredibly painful dry heave. Nothing came up but a tiny mouthful of saliva.</p><p>“Shit,” Steve muttered, watching Bucky cough weakly and try to catch his breath. He heard Bucky sniffle a little, and suddenly had to turn away when he noticed the tears that had begun slipping down his face.</p><p>“Hold on, Bucky,” Steve whispered, mind reeling as he tried to think of something, anything he’d be able to do to help. “I’m gonna fix this, okay? I promise.”</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Before Dawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Everything around him was foggy. That was pretty much the extent of what the Soldier could comprehend through the pain consuming him. Even if he could think past the tight band of pressure that seemed to be wrapped around his forehead, there was his stomach to distract him, slowly but surely working to turn itself fully inside out. Then the way his skin was overtaken with ice, or maybe fire, every time it made contact with something solid, and the way his muscles were at once restless and beyond limp with exhaustion. Even his eyes were prickling, sending something wet and warm sliding down the sensitive skin of his face.</p>
<p>He knew he was dying. He just wished his handlers had the mercy to get it over with quickly.</p>
<p>“You’ve gotta work with me here, c’mon.” A voice floated through the Soldier’s hazy mind, continually ordering cooperation with his punishment. The Soldier gritted his teeth and shook his head even though it ratcheted up the nausea already churning in his stomach. They were long past the point where obedience might have meant a reprieve. Now, when they wanted him to cooperate, it was just so they’d be able to hurt him more.</p>
<p>“<em> Please </em>, Buck. You’re running really hot. I don’t even think you’re sweating anymore. I know your stomach’s sick, but you’ve gotta get some fluids into you. Honestly you - you probably need a doctor, but I can’t exactly take you into the hospital, can I? So just - help me out here, bud. You can do it, I know you can.”</p>
<p>The Soldier could smell the drink his handler was offering, something sweet and reeking of artificial grape. He hiccuped wetly, the harsh scent turning his stomach, and buried his head in the crook of his arm, resting it against the cool porcelain of the toilet. </p>
<p>“I know.” The handler’s voice was off, unsteady. The Soldier’s awareness started kicking back into gear, trying to figure out where he’d heard that voice before, why it sounded so breathy and punctuated with tears. “But it’ll help with the cramps, and - and if you get something on your stomach, it might hurt less getting sick. I promise I just want to help you. You have to trust me, sweetheart.”</p>
<p>That was - definitely not a word the Soldier was accustomed to hearing. He remembered it, though. In his mind he heard it in his own voice, heard himself whispering it as his own hands rubbed the back of a smaller boy, trying to comfort him.</p>
<p>
  <em> You’ll be okay, Stevie. Just breathe with me, sweetheart… </em>
</p>
<p>The Soldier lifted his head.</p>
<p>Steve was in front of him, sad-eyed and offering him a bottle of Gatorade.</p>
<p>A handler was in front of him, taunting him as he held back the injections that would finally end this. </p>
<p>The boy from his memories was in front of him, wheezing his way through an asthma attack while the Soldier rubbed his back. </p>
<p>A man in a white coat was in front of him, informing him that he was to be the new fist of HYDRA.</p>
<p>He was in an apartment. He was in a cell. He was in a tent while bombs echoed in the distance. He was in the chair bracing for agony. He was in cryo as the cold crept in around him, biting and cruel.  </p>
<p>He flinched. Calibrated. Tried to focus.</p>
<p>He didn’t know where he was. He just wanted this to be <em> over.  </em></p>
<p>Maybe the man he was with was a handler, but maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he really was telling the truth when he said he wanted to help. At this point, maybe was going to have to be good enough.</p>
<p>“Okay.” The Soldier surprised himself by speaking. His voice was raw and burned on its way out of his throat, but he’d undoubtedly made himself heard. The man - <em> Steve </em> - looked at him, echoing back his own surprise. </p>
<p>“Okay? Yeah?” Steve sounded as though he was cautiously starting to believe his luck. He leaned in closer to the Soldier, offering the bottle of Gatorade. The Soldier’s hands were still shaking too much for him to get a grip on it, so Steve held it for him, allowing him to take tiny sips. It tasted revolting, but the Soldier couldn’t deny that it felt good against this dry, bitter mouth.</p>
<p>“Good. Doing great, Buck,” Steve said thickly, withdrawing the drink. The Soldier whimpered, leaning towards Steve, still thirsty even though his stomach was starting to churn again.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Steve said, genuinely regretful. “You can have more in a minute. Just let your stomach settle first, okay?”</p>
<p>The Soldier reluctantly obeyed. Already feeling better for having consumed something with actual calories, he took a moment to start piecing together his surroundings. The bathroom around him came into focus, different enough from a lab to convince him that he wasn’t imminently being experimented upon. And the man with him definitely wasn’t a handler. None of his handlers had ever looked at him like that. </p>
<p>“Steve,” he whispered. It made sense now. He was with Steve. That meant he was safe.</p>
<p>But - that couldn’t be right. The Soldier was starting to taste the awful artificial drink again, starting to feel something fiery lurching up his throat. The sick feeling brought with it a thundering in his head, making the walls around him fuzz over again as he reverted to his conditioning amidst the all-too-familiar agony.</p>
<p>His face twitched. Steve couldn’t be here. Steve wouldn’t let them hurt him like this. </p>
<p>“Bucky? You with me?”</p>
<p>The Soldier heard the words but couldn’t make sense of them. “Please,” he whispered, voice coming out watery as saliva pooled in his mouth. He leaned toward the place where Steve had just been, wishing he could bring him back, even if he’d only been a hallucination. Instead he just ended up falling forward and vomiting Gatorade all over the bathroom floor. </p>
<p>“Oh god,” someone whispered, grabbing the Soldier’s shoulders and positioning him back over the toilet. He continued to retch, feeling involuntary tears borne of the pain and pressure in his head continuing to leak down his face.</p>
<p>“I’ll be good,” he insisted between heaves. “I’ll be good, please. Please, just - make it stop.”</p>
<p>He didn’t get an answer. Figured, he thought bitterly. They never answered him when he begged.</p>
<p>What he did get was a loud sniffing noise, like someone was crying but trying hard to hold it in. Then the soft feeling of a hand on his back, burning against his sensitive skin but still so gentle he almost melted under its touch. He’d done that for someone, a lifetime ago - he was sure of it. He tried to access the memory, to hold on to it, but it kept slipping through the cracks like water in cupped hands. </p>
<p>The hand on his back, though, stayed, solid and permanent. As time crept on, as the Soldier’s body and mind continued to tear themselves apart, he did his best to let the touch ground him, leaning into the sureness of that hand and away from the uncertainty of absolutely everything else. </p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>Steve shifted on the bathroom floor, joints popping as he readjusted in his cramped position. Sitting on the hard tile with his back propped against the wall for hours on end was definitely unpleasant, but Steve was sure it was less than nothing compared to what Bucky was going through. If Bucky wasn’t going to be comfortable or get any rest, Steve had vowed that he wouldn’t either. </p>
<p>A few bars of dim morning light were filtering in through the blinds of the bathroom window, falling on Bucky where he lay on the floor, curled up in the space between the toilet and the bathtub. He’d trembled over the toilet for hours, his body failing to accept that it was empty and incessantly forcing him into dry heaves so bad that they had him crying and not even seeming to realize it, before Steve had managed to convince him to at least lie down. </p>
<p>“Can’t - don’t wanna make a mess,” Bucky had protested when Steve had tried to take him to lie down in his bed. His eyelids had been drooping with exhaustion, but he’d still found the energy to writhe away from Steve’s outstretched hands and remain hunched over on the bathroom floor. “‘M already in trouble.”</p>
<p>Steve should have felt shocked, but as far as the disturbing things Bucky had been half-coherently saying all night went, that one was pretty much par for the course. Feeling his heart fracture for what must have been the hundredth time that night, Steve had relented, running to the bedroom to at least retrieve a blanket to stop Bucky from shivering so hard when he laid down on the cold tile floor. </p>
<p>He’d truly meant to only grab a blanket before hurrying back. But as he’d tugged one off his bed, his eyes had fallen on the Winter Soldier file still sitting on his nightstand, and he’d paused. In another half-rationalized moment of <em> needing to know </em>what was happening to Bucky, needing to know what he could possibly do to fix it, Steve had grabbed the folder too, tucking it under his arm as he returned to the bathroom.</p>
<p>It sat next to him on the floor now, its contents spread about and half-illuminated in the pale morning light. For all the details that the file contained about ways Bucky had been hurt, it provided remarkably little information about how one might go about healing him. Steve supposed he’d just have to figure that part out himself. For now, though, he just sat there, holding tightly to the only part of that damn folder that really meant anything to him - the picture of Bucky, his Bucky. The one he’d do anything for, no matter the cost.</p>
<p>On the floor in front of him, Bucky - the <em> real </em>Bucky - started to stir. Steve dropped the photo back to the pile of papers on the floor without a second thought. Bucky, alive and in front of him, was so much more important. </p>
<p>“Hey,” he whispered quietly, unsure of whether Bucky was actually awake or not. Bucky had spent much of the night tossing and turning on the floor, shaking out the twitching muscles of his legs as he’d tried and failed to get comfortable, breath coming shallow and labored and his hands clenched fruitlessly around his stomach. It had been a blessing for both of them when Bucky had finally managed to surrender to sleep, and Steve didn’t want to be the one who broke the tentative calm. </p>
<p>Bucky muttered something unintelligible, or maybe just groaned. He loosened his tight fetal position a little as his eyes fluttered open, taking in Steve sitting above him. Bucky still looked pale and worn down and unmistakably ill, but his eyes were the clearest Steve had seen them since 1945. Somewhere in his chest he felt the pieces of his heart starting to knit themselves back together. </p>
<p>“There you are,” he breathed, certain beyond doubt that it was the truth. Bucky looked at him for a long moment, long enough that anyone other than Steve would have begun to worry, before offering the tiniest hint of a nod in acknowledgement. Steve smiled wider than he had all century.</p>
<p>Heartened, Steve reached out to Bucky, raising his hand to peel away a tendril of hair that had been plastered to Bucky’s forehead with sickly sweat, wanting to provide whatever small amount of comfort he could. Bucky surprised him by meeting him halfway. He raised his shaking flesh hand to meet Steve’s, not blocking it exactly, just stopping its path to hold it in his trembling grip. After a moment Steve returned the gesture, interlacing his fingers with Bucky’s. Slowly, Bucky’s expression meandered from hurt to something almost resembling contentment.</p>
<p>Steve could still feel the fever on Bucky’s skin, could still make out the tremors in his limbs and the pained wheeze that bled into his shallow breath. He knew Bucky still had a long way to go, and he knew that he still had an obligation to find Bucky real help, to make his road ahead as smooth as possible. </p>
<p>For just a moment, though, he allowed himself to simply <em> be </em>, to sit there and breathe with Bucky’s hand in his. In that moment it was just the two of them together, the way it was always meant to be. And Steve realized that things might really be alright. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for sticking around to the end!</p>
<p>Feel free to chat with me here or on <a href="https://winteratdusk.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a> - always makes my day! :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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